W.H. bends truth on Joe Barton

The pitch: BP-apologist Joe Barton would head the Energy and Commerce Committee if Republicans win the House.

The salesmen: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

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The truth: Not so much.

But that’s not stopping Democrats from continuing to hawk the Barton-as-chairman storyline.

Democrats believe – with good reason – that Barton handed them an already wrapped gift when he apologized to BP last week for a supposed White House “shakedown” that resulted in the company handing the reins of a $20 billion claims fund to a government-appointed independent third party.

They’ve been pressing the case to voters.

“[I]t’s dangerous for the American people, because while the ranking Republican would have oversight into the energy industry, and if the Republicans were the majority, would have actually the gavel and the chairmanship,” Emanuel said on ABC’s This Week Sunday.

Gibbs tweeted this last week: “Who would the GOP put in charge of overseeing the energy industry & Big Oil if they won control of Congress? Yup, u guessed it - JOE BARTON.”

But Barton has somewhere between zero and no chance of being the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman next year, according to Republican rules and sources.

After half a dozen years at the helm of the panel, he faces a Republican term limit rule. Minority Leader John Boehner has given strong indications that exemptions to that limit will be few and far between. Boehner and Barton have a long-running dislike for each other, meaning it’s extraordinarily unlikely that the Boehner-dominated Steering Committee would go out of its way to waive the rules and give Barton the gavel. And, as several Republican sources told POLITICO on Friday, any chance Barton had of hanging onto his job in the next Congress was almost certainly swept away with his apology to BP.

Nonetheless, Democrats on Capitol Hill are continuing with on the Barton-as-chairman theme – even though they know it’s baseless.

“So?” one Democratic leadership aide said. “It’s a valid point to make … [Republicans] like to throw out the Speaker Boehner thing” – a reference to Boehner taking control of the House if Republicans win power.

A White House official defended the thrust of the argument – but also implicitly acknowledged that Barton’s not likely to be chairman again.

“For years Republicans have put Congressman Barton at the helm of the committee regulating our energy policy while he shilled for the industry, fought regulation, and denied climate change, so it’s no surprise that once the politics changed they’d attempt to walk away from him now,” the official said. “But the fact is that they’ve left him as the top Republican on Energy and Commerce, and by failing to remove him, they have endorsed him.”